Spell Defense, 3rd Ed Rules as Written Options

[Yonush]

Hello,

I have tried my serch-fu and have come up with nothing. This is my first post to this forum and I thank you guys in advance for any assistance.

In 3rd Ed, Under Spell Defense I have read and re-read the section and the following is how I believe the rule works:

It is my understanding that I can take part of my Sorcery Pool (7) and Spell Pool (7) for a total of 14 Dice and allocate any number of them to Spell Defense. Then I choose up to 7 players (including myself) to be protected by my Spell Defense. Should a enemy cast a spell at any one of the protect people, I can choose to use a portion of the Spell Defense Pool to counter the spell.

There is a long time 3rd Ed player in my gaming group who insists this is not how Spell Defense works. He claims that you must Allocate the Spell Defense Dice in the pool to a target and only if that player is targeted does the Spell Defense work.

The mechanics of countering the spell isn't in question, only the Allocation of the Spell Defense Pool. Obviously House Rules win-out regardless of Rules As Written. However, I want to bring this to the GM for a ruleing and before I do, I wanted to make sure I was on solid footing on how the Rule works.

Thank you for your time.

Yonush

[Draco18s]

Pretty sure that you are correct. It wouldn't make any sense that you had all of 14 dice (max) to spread between 7 people (2 dice is not very many in 3rd).

[Stahlseele]

point is, you are not using these dice. basically, you are giving the other characters more dice to roll on their own spell resistance tests.
and as far as i remember, he is correct in how it works. because you are not rolling any dice, you are giving other people more to roll.
if you could, indeed, give everybody the full allocated pool you set aside for spell defence, then everybody would roll willpoer/body+your allocated dice.
which would make them basically magic-proof . .

[Bigity]

You are correct.

They have to be on the same plane, within Magic x 100 meters.

Any one you cover you can provide spell defense dice for, but don't have to. Any you do provide comes out of the spell defense die you have allocated out of your Spell Pool (and foci, etc etc).




I'm not sure what a Sorcery Pool is though.

[Stahlseele]

The Sorcery skill. probably a 5/7 with spell casting as a specialization.
It is the only skill that really basically works similar to how pools work.

[Bigity]

Ah, just never referred to it as a Sorcery Pool I guess (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Yonush]

point is, you are not using these dice. basically, you are giving the other characters more dice to roll on their own spell resistance tests.
and as far as i remember, he is correct in how it works. because you are not rolling any dice, you are giving other people more to roll.
if you could, indeed, give everybody the full allocated pool you set aside for spell defence, then everybody would roll willpoer/body+your allocated dice.
which would make them basically magic-proof . .

The Spell Defense Dice are not rolled by the player protected; it is rolled by the Mage protecting the players. I.e. I roll the Spell Defense and reduce the number of Successes I get from the Number of Successes the other caster got when casting. At least thats how I read it. Can you please cite which book you're seeing the protected player rolls? Maybe it's in a different book, I have access to most of them, and I could very well be missing it.

The players Protected make their normal Body/Willpower tests vs. the reduced Spell.

If it does work the way I think it does, It still doesn’t make a player magic proof, as I only have so many Spell Defense Dice to protect a small party with.

An Example:

[ Spoiler ]

Players:
Bob – Phys-Ad
Melissa – Phys-Ad
Jeff – Cyber Gunner
Joe – Mage
Greta – Street Sam

NPC 1 – Mage
NPC 2 – Shaman
NPC 3 – Ganger
NPC 4 – Ganger

Bob Greta and Melissa engage the gangers and Jeff Shoots the Shaman. On Joe’s Initiative (9) he allocates 6 of his Casting Pool (Total 14) to Spell Defense, designates the Party and casts a Force 6 Armor with the remainder and takes a Light Stun. The Mage (Initiative (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) decides to Cast a Force 6L Stun Bolt at Jeff and get 7 successes (6D Stun Damage). Since he is protected and he is the ranged heavy, Joe chooses to use 4 Dice and get 3 Successes. This lowers the Stun Bolt from 7 to 4 (6M Stun Damage) and leaves his Spell Defense Pool at 2. The Shaman (Initiative 8)didn’t like being shot and casts a Force 6S Mana Bolt at Jeff and gets 3 Successes (6D Physical). Joe, again, uses his remaining 2 Spell Defense Pool and get lucky with 2 Successes lowering the Mana Bolt back to 6S.

And yes Its my Sorcery Skill which is 5/7 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Mongoose]

There is a long time 3rd Ed player in my gaming group who insists this is not how Spell Defense works. He claims that you must Allocate the Spell Defense Dice in the pool to a target and only if that player is targeted does the Spell Defense work.

That's how it worked in 2ed, but what you described is correct for 3ed. This change was made for 3ed because the 2ed rules resulted in mages pretty much only being able to use spell defense for themselves (because other mages would ID & geek them if they did not) and mundanes being forced to bulk up stats that would act as spell TN's just to stand a chance in a magical environment, even when they had magical support.

Source; my GM back in 1999 was Robert Boyle.

[sk8bcn]

p163:

[Sorcery] targets can be protected within Magic x 100m on the same plane as the mage.

You must spend a free action to protect them.

that part:

Generally, most magicians allocate at least some of their Sorcery dice to defense with themselves as the target, allowing them to use Spell Defense to protect themselves against surprise magical attacks

seems to imply you have to call yourself as one of the protected to use spell defense.

Then you pick Sorcery and Spell pools dices, gone till NEXT turn.

If a spell is used against one of the protected, he decides how many dices he use against the spell. IMO, it's pretty explicit.


What is less is the glitch with the free action part. According p 40, I can take one at any turn from any character. So I could cast my spells until someone casts a spell that I would then counter.